


take a breath that's true

by tosca1390



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-21
Updated: 2012-05-21
Packaged: 2017-11-05 18:56:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/409895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The celebration is their only gift to them. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	take a breath that's true

**Author's Note:**

> Future fic.

*

The captains don’t wait very long to press their advantage. 

Rukia knows, of course, that it was coming. She could feel it in every inch of the preparations for the celebrations of their marriage, something lavish and too shallow to truly mean anything to either her or Ichigo. But Isshin is hysterical with joy and her brother is somber but willing to open his hands and his house, and the captains are silent, waiting. Ukitake-taicho sends letters and suggestions and smiles through his coughs; Kyouraku is droll and casual, but there is a sharp undertone to his every glance as she and Ichigo go back and forth. There are secret meetings of which she is not privy to, of which even Ichigo will not speak to her of yet, and she knows, she _knows_ what this all really means.

The celebration is their only gift to them. 

*

Her kimono is tied too tight at her waist. 

She stands in the shadows of the porch, overlooking her brother’s gardens and courtyard. A cool glass of sake lingers in her palm, untouched. From here, she sees everything – Orihime laughing with Isshin, Sado and Ishida in deep conversation with Shinji and Hiyori under the cherry blossoms, Rangiku trying to ply Hitsugaya with drink – it’s not everyone, but it feels like all of Soul Society is here under her brother’s roof. He stands, aloof and separate, with the Commander-Captain. 

Ichigo is nowhere to be found, which really shouldn’t surprise her. He’s not one for parties, after all. However, it feels like more. 

“You are a very somber bride, Rukia-san.”

Rukia slides her gaze to her side. Kyouraku, seemingly out of thin air, is at her side. His flowery flowing sleeves brush at hers. He has forgone his hat this evening, most likely at Nanao’s insistence; Rukia always forgets how very intense his gaze can be.

“I have been one for quite some time, taicho,” she says at last, her fingers plucking at her obi, dark blue silk. She hovers a hand over her middle, on instinct. The secret is heavy in her throat. “A party doesn’t change anything.”

“Maa, maa – you two! To deny us a chance to celebrate your epic love –“ he grins, and she flushes. It’s uncomfortable, this much attention on the two of them. She’s sure more attention can only mean bad things are coming. “Your brother is very happy for the opportunity to do right by you.”

“If you say,” she murmurs, turning her eyes back to the courtyard. She aches, is tired of the attention and the strictures of her brother’s home. She wants to go home – not to her bedroom here in the mansion, but to the small apartment she helped Ichigo pick out near the university, two bedrooms and a kitchen and something just theirs. 

“Where is he?” she asks after a moment, turning to look at Kyouraku.

He is watching her, a casual little smile playing at his mouth. “How should I know where your young husband is, Rukia-san?”

“Because he disappeared with you and Ukitake-taicho and my brother some time ago, and now you are all here, and he is not,” she retorts. The cool spring breeze is cloying on her bare throat; her hair slips from its loose knot, catching at the nape of her neck. In the back of her mind, Shirayuki is quiet. 

Kyouraku hums and looks off across the gardens. Rukia knows where his gaze lingers; Nanao sits with Renji and Isshin, prim and lovely in a pale kimono. 

“He’s inside. He’s coming back, of course. He would never leave the party all on your shoulders,” he says at last, voice a light tease that belies much more. 

Rukia smiles, because she is polite, and Kyouraku is a friendly face more often than not. She swallows down the bitterness lingering on her tongue and bows her head, in deference. Her skirt settles at her ankles as she pads inside. She shuts the screen behind her, and can still feel the captain’s eyes on her back. 

It doesn’t take long to find Ichigo. The party is humming and swirling below them. She slides the door open to her old bedroom and waits in the doorframe, watching him. 

“It’s your party too, you know,” she says at last. 

Ichigo, sitting on the edge of her bed, scoffs and leans back. He looks quite sharp and tall in his dark robes, his hair very bright in the soft evening light. He has one of her Chappy plushies in his hands, and she suddenly feels very young, despite the cool metal band on her finger and the taste of vows in her mouth. 

“I didn’t want it.”

“Neither did I,” she retorts, planting her hands on her hips. 

He won’t look at her. His hair falls across his brow, longer now. She thinks of the university classes in his future, a striving towards normalcy – perhaps they were naïve, to think that was all possible. 

“Yamamoto wants me to resign my seat,” she says at last. 

Ichigo looks up then, mouth twisting. “Because you’re _married_.”

“I suppose so,” she says, and why is this suddenly awkward between them? She is tired and he is stiff and she can’t help but wish it was all still a secret, theirs to protect and hold, without the interference of anyone else. 

She still has one, though, she thinks. 

He snorts, and sets her plushie aside. “That’s not happening.”

“You should go tell him that,” she says, amused. 

“Already did,” he says, very quietly. 

Pressing her lips together, she moves away from the doorway and towards him, and her bed. It’s hard to think of this as her room, really. For years now it’s been Ichigo’s room that felt like home in the strangest ways; even in the seventeen months and more that she was here and he was lost to them all, she still slept in here restlessly, focused on work, focused on herself, growing stronger. Rest was never essential. 

“Idiot. What the hell did you do?” she asks as she sits next to him. Her hands fix and fuss at her skirt. 

His arm slides around her shoulders immediately, his fingers sliding over the bare curve of her throat, through the loose knot of her hair. “Nothing. I just – I reminded all of them that I could burn the place down, if I wanted,” he says all too casually. 

She shakes her head, smacking his leg. “I don’t need you fighting my battles for me.”

“I know –“

“That’s not what this means, Ichigo,” she adds sharply, fluttering her ring hand in front of his gaze. 

“I _know_ – would you shut up for a minute?” he huffs. 

Rukia rolls her eyes and looks down at the floor, at the slight scuffs in the wood, the whorls there. The soft sounds of the party filter in through the open window from the gardens. 

Ichigo’s fingers cup the nape of her neck lightly. She turns to look at him. 

“It’s leverage,” he says, voice low. “He could make you do it. But I know – I know it’s important to you.”

She blinks, a sharp burn at the back of her eyes and throat. In the back of her mind, Shirayuki sighs. 

His eyes are dark, flecked with gold. She wets her lips carefully as he looks at her. “My cooperation with their plans is in exchange with your keeping of your position.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she says sharply, voice rising in pitch. 

“Why not? We help each other. Isn’t that what we do?” he asks as he drags his fingertips along the line of her neck. “And I don’t care. You know I can burn it down whenever I want.”

Her throat is stuck on _plans_ and _leverage_ , and it feels more complicated than it really should. She knows what Ichigo is, and what it means for him to be here and helping the Gotei Thirteen in their efforts to restructure and rebuild, but it still stings. Everything is tied to plans and secrecy, she thinks, and she hates it. 

She leans in and glances her mouth over his, shutting her eyes for a moment. His hand slides into her hair, loosening it out of its knot. It fans over her shoulders as he moves his mouth over hers, warm and wet and easy. Her hand curls into his thigh as she shifts closer to him on the bed. He is warm where she is cool; Shirayuki coos and hums, low in her mind, and in her belly, under a scar she has memorized, Rukia feels the answering shiver from Zangestu, where he always lives. 

“What are their plans?” she asks at last, lips very near his. 

When he doesn’t answer, she opens her eyes. He’s watching her, and there, she can see the gold growing in his eyes, sharp and warm. 

She leans in and pokes at his chest, insistent fingers into hard muscle. “Ichigo.”

“Ow,” he mutters, rubbing at his chest. 

“Oh, stop it.” She rolls her eyes and smoothes her hand over his chest, where she can see scars in her mind’s eye. “What plans?”

“Not yet,” he says stubbornly. His hands come to her waist and pull her close, onto his lap, and she straddles him, her knees pressing against her skirts into the bed. “Not yet,” he repeats, gaze heavy on her face, as if he is memorizing her. 

He is, she thinks with a start. 

Her hands come up to his jaw, fingers curving around the sharp edges. “You’re leaving,” she says softly. 

“Stop,” he says, leaning into kiss her. There’s something bitter behind the feel of his mouth, the press of his tongue at her bottom lip. 

Her thumbs press along the line of his jaw. It’s entirely too inappropriate, here in her adopted room, with their official wedding celebrations – his hands weave and turn through the silks of her skirts, to bare cool skin – and she is biting at his lip, her nails catching at the edge of his throat. There are too many layers between them and he is warm, so warm through them, that she can hardly catch her breath as his mouth slides and slicks over hers. His fingers curl at the jut of her hip and the dip of her thigh. 

“Ichigo –“ she breathes, when the slow rise and fall of Isshin’s brash voice catches in her ear through the open windows. Her palms flatten against the line of his throat. 

Ichigo breathes against her mouth, hitching her closer. His fingers dig into the thin skin of her thighs. “It’s Aizen –“ he says at last, as his mouth follows the line of her jaw, throat. 

Her mouth curls and she feels it at the scar at her chest, the reverberation of the name in her bones. There’s a heavy sort of hum in the back of her mind and she opens her eyes, smoothing her hands across his shoulders, pushing at the soft robes. 

“What about him?” she says at last, voice low and heavy in her throat. 

He meets her gaze, and she sees it, the sharp amber-gold there – sometimes, she never knows who she will end up talking to, but she is never afraid. There is the press of her knees into the bed pallet and his fingers search for purchase between her thighs, under the full shift of her skirts. 

“It isn’t secure for him here anymore. We have to move him.”

“Move him?” she repeats. 

Ichigo smiles then, a cruel little slice in his sharp face. “Yeah. Move him.” He touches her then, two fingers at her clit and she sighs, the flush warm on her cheeks.

She lifts a hand to touch his lips, nails edging along the line of his mouth. “You’re not moving him.”

“That’s the story,” he says dryly, biting at her fingertips. His thumb curls as he moves along slick flesh, and there – there it is – she tilts her head back and moans, a soft stuttered noise. Voices carry, she thinks as the breeze settles between their bodies and sifts through her loose hair. 

“You’re full of shit,” she breathes. 

He grins, and leans into kiss her. “They don’t know that.”

She swallows down a sigh and kisses him, her mouth opening. There’s the slide of one, two fingers inside her, his thumb at her clit, and her hips jerk, a slow roll she cannot repress. She can feel his ring against her skin, pressing warm. 

“How long?” she murmurs against his mouth, her fingers digging into his chest. She traces the scars she knows well. The air smells of spring rain and cherry blossoms, and it makes her almost sick. She longs for snow, and the clean sharp scent of ice. 

His mouth lingers just breaths from hers. Fingers shift between her thighs and she feels the breath catch in her throat, the slow melt of warmth in her middle. This isn’t how she expected the night to progress – but really, she isn’t surprised. 

“I don’t know,” he says, just as he bites his way down the line of her throat, lips moving over skin and the collar of her kimono. 

She tucks herself closer to him, her hips arching into the heel of his hand between her thighs. Her face sinks into the arch of his throat and she shuts her eyes, breathing his name into his skin. It’s quiet when she comes, three fingers curving inside her and his thumb at her clit, his mouth near her ear. 

“I don’t know, I don’t _know_ ,” he repeats, voice aching. 

Taking a deep breath, she keeps her face tucked into his throat, shuddering. She feels his hand, sticky and warm, on her bare thigh. She cannot say anything, not yet. She cannot look at him. 

It’s too soon.

“Rukia,” he murmurs after a moment, with the party filling their ears. There are to be fireworks soon, she thinks dully. “Rukia, _please_ – “

It’s the _please_ that tugs at her heart, that brings her too-warm face back from his skin. She meets his eyes, wide and bright, just for a moment before she pushes him back onto the bed and kisses him, mouth rough and sharp on his. Her fingers dig and tug at his robes, and she feels the fabric give and spread. His hands stutter on her thighs, startled – but his mouth is open, open and hers. In the air, reverberating against her skin, she feels his reiatsu thicken and curl around them both, weaving into hers, steadying her. 

Together they shift and twine on the bed; soon her skirt is at her waist and she is perched on his hips, her fingers sliding over the hard length of him, and he’s swearing low under his breath, eyelids lowered – his gaze is edged with gold and she shivers even as she leans over him, her teeth sinking into his bottom lip. 

“You’re full of shit,” she whispers as she sinks onto him, her knees settling into the bed, her hips spread. His hands fall to her waist as he pulls her close, chest to chest – she grazes her teeth along his jaw, the pulse at his throat. 

“ _Rukia_ – “ he groans, his fingers digging into her skin. There will be marks if he keeps this up, as she begins to move over him, her hands stretched over his shoulders and chest. She feels the ridges of old scars and new, shifts her fingertips over the first scar she ever knew of his, where a piece of herself still lives in him. 

“You knew – you knew what they would ask of you – “ she grits out, licking at his throat, the grooves of his jaw. 

A hand lifts up and twines in her hair, tugging her towards him for a kiss, but she knocks away, her mouth sliding over his cheek instead. She rolls her hips and he groans, the fingers in her loose hair curling harder against her scalp. It’s raw and sharp-edged and hot, their robes sticking to their skins, sweat at the nape of her neck. The breeze is even stifling and cloying, too sweet in her mouth as she opens her lips against his skin over and over. 

Of course, _of course_ this is where they end up, at their own party, with hands on skin and clothes half-off and at the waist.

As he moans her name, his mouth lingering near her ear, she thinks neither of them would have it any other way. 

*

Later, she ties his robes for him as he stands in front of her. It’s a quite sort of domesticity that’s unfamiliar, but nice. In pieces and snatches, that is. 

“You’ve known for a while,” she says flatly, her fingers smoothing across his chest. 

Ichigo’s hands come to her throat, his fingers touching her loose hair. She needs to fix it again before they rejoin the party, but it feels good, loose and free at her throat and shoulders. 

“I didn’t – I don’t know, I didn’t want to ruin this for you,” he says, voice very low. 

“You’re an idiot,” she mutters, smoothing his collar down at his throat. 

He laughs, and there’s something familiar in that, at least. She tightens her grip on his robes just for a moment, the solid press of him. 

“Eh, no one really knows about it, either. So, I couldn’t – I couldn’t really tell you,” he adds. 

Now she looks up at him, shaking her head. “Fuck you,” she says, without heat. 

Nodding shortly, he leans in and kisses her softly. Every piece of her kimono is in place. She flushes at the throat as his mouth parts over hers, his tongue soft at her bottom lip. She shuts her eyes for just a moment, leaning into him. The night is cool, the breeze soft; they are calling for them, for the fireworks, and all she wants is their home, their bed, and her sword in her hand. 

“I know,” he says at last, his mouth very close to hers. 

She opens her eyes, palms flat on his chest. “And I can’t go,” she says flatly. 

His eyes flicker between them, at her belly. Now, now she feels the flush as she hadn’t before. 

“No,” he says, mouth twitching. 

“You are such a _jerk_ ,” she breathes, punching him right in the chest. 

“Me? What about you - when the fuck were you going to tell me?” he counters sharply. 

She sighs and lets him smooth his hands through her hair, his fingers light on the nape of her neck. “When I was sure. How did you know?”

Ichigo just snorts, and shakes his head. “C’mon.”

Rukia rolls her eyes and steps away from him, her hands rising to her hair as his fall away. She begins to tuck the loose strands into a knot at the nape of her neck, because of course, of course he would feel it between them – she felt it herself, the small spark of energy and spirit. 

It scares her, but that’s another sort of moment, not for today. 

“Well – okay. Fine,” she says, suddenly tired. It’s all too anti-climatic; she thinks it should have been something _more_ , but what does she really know of it all?

His arms go around her waist as she finishes the last of her hair; she feels upright and secure again, everything in place. “I’ll be back soon,” he murmurs. “I just – I need you to stay in town.”

“I know,” she says. Her mouth slides across his jaw. She fits well in the hollow of his chest. 

“I’m not ordering you, you know,” he drawls. 

“Like you could,” she mutters. 

His hand falls to her belly, through the soft silk of her skirt. There’s a catch in her throat and she flushes, rolling her eyes. 

“Don’t get sentimental,” she mutters. 

He leans in and kisses her lightly. “Never.”

They go to the party, at last. There are innocent stares and knowing ones, and ones that know too much; but Rukia stands at Ichigo’s side and watches the fireworks, watches as Kyouraku chases Nanao with a sparkler, and feels the lump at her throat thicken. 

This is what she knew, after all.

*

Rukia wakes in the middle of the night one week later to find him gone, just the memory of a kiss on her cheek and the fading warmth of his pillow at her side. 

The apartment is too quiet by half for too long. 

*


End file.
